EMMA is an Organization which raises awareness of discrimination through media campaigns, social networking, and the EMMA Awards.

The EMMA Awards promote diversity within the media industry by publicly recognizing the levels of excellence achieved by the multicultural community, and the qualities that each ethnic group brings to the professional and commercial success of the United Kingdom.

EMMA founder, Bobby Syed, launched the first EMMA Awards the 4th May 1998 at the Dorchester Hotel, Park Lane, London. The awards ceremony was hosted by Lisa Aziz

Lisa Aziz

Lisa Aziz is a British news presenter. She is best known as the co-presenter of the Bristol based ITV South West nightly weekday news programme The West Country Tonight. Before this she worked for TV-am and Sky News, and was one of the first Asian presenters to be seen on television...

 (Sky News

Sky News

Sky News is a 24-hour British and international satellite television news broadcaster with an emphasis on UK and international news stories.The service places emphasis on rolling news, including the latest breaking news. Sky News also hosts localised versions of the channel in Australia and in New...

 Presenter) and Darcus Howe

Darcus Howe

Darcus Howe is a British broadcaster, writer, and civil liberties campaigner. Originally from Trinidad, he moved to America in the 1960s, then arrived in England intending to study law, where he joined the British Black Panthers, the first such branch of the organization outside the United States...

 (Broadcaster/Journalist).

In 2001 the EMMA Awards began working with the BBC. The awards ceremony was previously televised as a regional show by Carlton Television

Carlton Television

Carlton Television was the ITV franchise holder for London and the surrounding counties including the cities of Solihull and Coventry of the West Midlands, south Suffolk, middle and east Hampshire, Oxfordshire, south Bedfordshire, south Northamptonshire, parts of Herefordshire & Worcestershire,...

 (now itv

ITV

ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

) in 1999 and 2000 after the Stephen Lawrence

Stephen Lawrence

Stephen Lawrence was a black British teenager from Eltham, southeast London, who was stabbed to death while waiting for a bus on the evening of 22 April 1993....

 enquiry.

The EMMA Awards is a globally recognized awards ceremony. Lord Richard Attenborough received the 2001 Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grosvenor House Hotel

Grosvenor House Hotel

Grosvenor House is a large and luxurious hotel. The iconic Mayfair, London hotel is owned by the Sahara Group. The name has also been licensed to a property in Dubai....

, London. In the previous year EMMA honored Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...

, who delivered gracious acceptance speech commending EMMA’s mission during a private visit to London EMMA to receive his Lifetime Achievement Award.

Many of the world’s most prominent multicultural figures have received the EMMA Lifetime Achievement Award. Prestigious recipients of the award include Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali is an American former professional boxer, philanthropist and social activist...

 who in 1999 supported EMMA’s initiative with the following statement, "As in the United States, Britain is lucky to draw from the talents of a community rich in ethnic diversity." Other Lifetime Achievement award winners include Ray Charles

Ray Charles

Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...

 and Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou is an American author and poet who has been called "America's most visible black female autobiographer" by scholar Joanne M. Braxton. She is best known for her series of six autobiographical volumes, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first and most highly...

 (2002), Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder

Stevland Hardaway Morris , better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist...

 (2003) and Sir Bill Morris (2004).

The EMMAs – previously known as the Ethnic Minority Media Awards – became the Ethnic Multicultural Media Awards, to promote culture and not one's race; this was largely because too many people had started defining the EMMAs on racial grounds when we first started in 1998. Since this discovery, the organisers made this change immediately to coincide with the 1999 UK Awards ceremony.

With many global icons being recognised each year in front of over 1,000 VIP guests attending including 35 Ambassadors, Senior Politicians and Global Celebrities, EMMA expanded into an annual Festival with over 500 events throughout the UK during the awards ceremony month and also launched EMMA (Music) Time on BSKYB Digital in 2003 with an EMMA Chatshow in 2004.

The UK EMMAs were screened on the Internet at emma.tv in May each year and accompanied by an online voting system. The award categories were revamped for UK EMMA 2002 to reflect a more dynamic entertainment and information based awards ceremony. EMMA hopes that the awards will help to redefine the depth of global cultural diversity and the standards of professional achievement.

The UK EMMA Awards has attracted millions of television viewers domestically on terrestrial television and worldwide viewers through the Internet and digital broadcasting, embracing the achievements of celebrities, leading politicians, ambassadors and senior diplomats from over 50 embassies who endorse and represent the philosophy of EMMA.

Notable winners

• Alicia Keys
  Alicia Keys
  Alicia Augello Cook , better known by her stage name Alicia Keys, is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and occasional actress. She was raised by a single mother in the Hell's Kitchen area of Manhattan in New York City. At age seven, Keys began playing the piano...
  
   - Best International Music Act Award 2002
• Angela Griffin
  Angela Griffin
  Angela Griffin is a British actress and television presenter.-Acting career:She appeared in the popular long-running British soap operas Emmerdale and most famously in Coronation Street as Fiona Middleton from 1993 to 1998...
  
   - Best TV Actress Award Winner 2000-2003
• Carlos Santana
  Carlos Santana
  Carlos Augusto Alves Santana is a Mexican rock guitarist. Santana became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band, Santana, which pioneered rock, salsa and jazz fusion...
  
   - Best International Music Act Award 2000
• Destiny's Child
  Destiny's Child
  Destiny's Child was an American R&B girl group whose final line-up comprised lead singer Beyoncé Knowles alongside Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams. Formed in 1997 in Houston, Texas, Destiny's Child members began their musical endeavors in their pre-teens under the name Girl's Tyme...
  
   - Best Int Music Act Award Winner 2001
• Diane Parish
  Diane Parish
  Diane Parish is a British actress best known for her role as Denise Johnson in the BBC Soap EastEnders and DC Eva Sharpe in The Bill.-Career:...
  
   - Best TV Actress Award 2002
• Gary Younge
  Gary Younge
  Gary Younge is a British journalist, author and broadcaster, born to immigrant parents from Barbados....
  
   - Best Newspaper Journalist Award Winner 2001-2003
• Henry Bonsu - Best Radio Journalist Award 1998-1999
• Justin Timberlake
  Justin Timberlake
  Justin Randall Timberlake is an American pop musician and actor. He achieved early fame when he appeared as a contestant on Star Search, and went on to star in the Disney Channel television series The New Mickey Mouse Club, where he met future bandmate JC Chasez...
  
   - Best Int Music Act Award Winner 2003
• Michael Moore
  Michael Moore
  Michael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...
  
   - Best Book, Novel Award 2003
• Natacha Atlas
  Natacha Atlas
  Natacha Atlas is a Belgian singer known for her fusion of Arabic and Western electronic music, particularly hip-hop. She once termed her music "cha'abi moderne" . Her music has been influenced by many styles including Arabic, hip hop, drum 'n' bass and reggae.Atlas began her career as part of...
  
   - Best World Music Act Award 2004
• Nitin Sawnhey - Best World Music Act Award 2002
• Rageh Omaar
  Rageh Omaar
  Rageh Omaar , is a Somali born British journalist and writer. His latest book Only Half of Me deals with the tensions between these two sides of his identity. He used to be a BBC world affairs correspondent, where he made his name reporting from Iraq...
  
   - Best TV Journalist Award Winner 2002-2003
• Rudolph Walker
  Rudolph Walker
  Rudolph Walker, OBE is a British character actor. Born in Trinidad and Tobago, Walker came to the United Kingdom in 1960....
  
   - Best TV Actor Award 2002
• Zadie Smith
  Zadie Smith
  Zadie Smith is a British novelist. To date she has written three novels. In 2003, she was included on Granta's list of 20 best young authors...
  
   - Best Book, Novel Award 2000
• Felix Dexter
  Felix Dexter
  Felix Dexter is an actor, comedian, and writer living in the U.K..-Early life:Dexter was born in St Kitts in the Caribbean, and moved to London with his family at the age of seven.-Radio:...
  
   - Best TV Actor Award 2001
• Farah Durrani - Best TV Journalist Award 1999
• The Black Eyed Peas
  The Black Eyed Peas
  The Black Eyed Peas are an American pop group , formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1995. The group includes rappers will.i.am, apl.de.ap, and Taboo, and singer Fergie. Since the release of their third album Elephunk in 2003, the group has sold an estimated 56 million records worldwide...
  
   - Best International Music Act Award 2004
• Amy Tan
  Amy Tan
  Amy Tan is an American writer whose works explore mother-daughter relationships. Her most well-known work is The Joy Luck Club, which has been translated into 35 languages...
  
   - Best Book, Novel Award 2002
• Bill Morris
  Bill Morris
  William Manuel Morris, Baron Morris of Handsworth, OJ , generally known as Bill Morris, was general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union from 1992 to 2003, and the first black leader of a British trade union....
  
   - Lifetime Achievement Award 2004
• Muhammad Ali
  Muhammad Ali
  Muhammad Ali is an American former professional boxer, philanthropist and social activist...
  
   - Lifetime Achievement Award 1999
• Nelson Mandela
  Nelson Mandela
  Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
  
   - Lifetime Achievement Award 2000
• Rageh Omaar
  Rageh Omaar
  Rageh Omaar , is a Somali born British journalist and writer. His latest book Only Half of Me deals with the tensions between these two sides of his identity. He used to be a BBC world affairs correspondent, where he made his name reporting from Iraq...
  
   - Best TV Journalist Award Winner 2002-2003
• Ray Charles
  Ray Charles
  Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
  
   - Lifetime Achievement Award 2002
• Kofi Annan
  Kofi Annan
  Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...
  
   - Best Public Figure Award Winner 2001
• Maya Angelou
  Maya Angelou
  Maya Angelou is an American author and poet who has been called "America's most visible black female autobiographer" by scholar Joanne M. Braxton. She is best known for her series of six autobiographical volumes, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first and most highly...
  
   - Lifetime Achievement Award Winner 2002
• Meera Syal
  Meera Syal
  Meera Syal MBE is a British comedienne, writer, playwright, singer, journalist, producer and actress. She rose to prominence as one of the team that created Goodness Gracious Me and became one of the UK's best-known Indian personalities portraying Sanjeev's grandmother, Ummi, in The Kumars at No...
  
   - Best Media Personality Award Winner 2001
• Melanie Brown
  Melanie Brown
  Melanie Janine "Scary Spice" Brown , often better known as Mel B, is an English pop singer-songwriter, actress, author and television presenter...
  
   - Best Public Figure Award Winner 2000
• Omid Djalili
  Omid Djalili
  Omid Djalili is a British Iranian stand-up comedian, actor, television producer and writer.-Personal life:Djalili was born in Chelsea, London to Iranian Bahá'í parents and is a Bahá'í himself...
  
   - Best Comedy, Comedian Award Winner 2002
• David Beckham
  David Beckham
  David Robert Joseph Beckham, OBE is an English footballer who plays midfield for Los Angeles Galaxy in Major League Soccer, having previously played for Manchester United, Preston North End, Real Madrid, and A.C...
  
   - Best Sport Personality Award Winner 2004
• Eddie Murphy
  Eddie Murphy
  Edward Regan "Eddie" Murphy is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, singer, director, and musician....
  
   - Best Film Actor 2001
• Halle Berry
  Halle Berry
  Halle Berry is an American actress and a former fashion model. Berry received an Emmy, Golden Globe, SAG, and an NAACP Image Award for Introducing Dorothy Dandridge and won an Academy Award for Best Actress and was nominated for a BAFTA Award in 2001 for her performance in Monster's Ball, becoming...
  
   - Best Film Actress 2002
• Lucy Liu
  Lucy Liu
  Lucy Alexis Liu is an American actress and film producer. She became known for playing the role of the vicious and ill-mannered Ling Woo in the television series Ally McBeal , and has also appeared in several Hollywood films including Charlie's Angels, Chicago, Kill Bill, and Kung Fu Panda.-Early...
  
   - Best TV Actress 2001
• Michelle Yeoh
  Michelle Yeoh
  Michelle Yeoh Choo-Kheng is a Hong Kong-based Malaysian Chinese actress, well known for performing her own stunts in the action films that brought her to fame in the early 1990s....
  
   - Best Film Actress 2001
• Salma Hayek
  Salma Hayek
  Salma Valgarma Hayek Jiménez de Pinault is a Mexican film actress, director and producer. She received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her role as Frida Kahlo in the film Frida.-Early life:...
  
   - Best Film Actress 2003
• Thierry Henry
  Thierry Henry
  Thierry Daniel Henry is a French professional footballer who plays for the New York Red Bulls in Major League Soccer.Henry was born in Les Ulis, Essonne where he played for an array of local sides as a youngster and showed great promise as a goal-scorer. He was spotted by AS Monaco in 1990 and...
  
   - Best Sport Personality Award Winner 2004
• Ria Lina - Best Comedy, Comedian Award Winner 2003
• Sir Richard Attenborough
  Richard Attenborough
  Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough , CBE is a British actor, director, producer and entrepreneur. As director and producer he won two Academy Awards for the 1982 film Gandhi...
  
   - Lifetime Achievement Award 2001
• George Alagiah
  George Alagiah
  George Maxwell Alagiah OBE is a British newsreader, journalist and television news presenter.Since 3 December 2007, he has been the sole presenter of the BBC News at Six and has also been the main presenter of GMT on BBC World News since its launch on 1 February 2010...
  
   - Best Media Personality Award Winner 1998
• Ian Wright
  Ian Wright
  Ian Edward Wright, MBE is a retired English footballer turned television and radio personality.Wright enjoyed success with London clubs Crystal Palace and Arsenal, spending six years with the former and seven years with the latter. With Arsenal he has lifted the Premier League title and both major...
  
   - Best Media Personality Award Winner 1999
• Inder Manocha
  Inder Manocha
  -Early life:Born in London to Indian parents, Manocha read Modern History at Jesus College, Oxford University and worked in international relations and as a therapist before deciding to work professionally in comedy and acting in 2001...
  
   - Comedian Award Winner 2004
• Venus Williams
  Venus Williams
  Venus Ebony Starr Williams is an American professional tennis player who is a former World No. 1 and is ranked World No. 101 as of 10 October 2011 in singles and World No. 20 in doubles as of 2011. She has been ranked World No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association on three separate...
  
   - Best Sport Personality Award Winner 2001
• Craig David
  Craig David
  Craig Ashley David is an English singer and songwriter. He has released five studio albums: Born to Do It, Slicker Than Your Average, The Story Goes..., Trust Me, Signed Sealed Delivered and a Greatest Hits album...
  
   - Best British Music Act 2001
• Denzel Washington
  Denzel Washington
  Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. is an American actor, screenwriter, director, and film producer. He first rose to prominence when he joined the cast of the medical drama, St. Elsewhere, playing Dr...
  
   - Best Film Actor 2002
• Jimi Mistry
  Jimi Mistry
  -Early life:Mistry, was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England to an Indian Hindu father and an Irish Roman Catholic mother. He was brought up a Roman Catholic and attended St. James' Catholic High in Cheadle Hulme before his family moved to Cardiff where he attended Radyr Comprehensive School...
  
   - Best Film Actor 2003
• Lemar
  Lemar
  Lemar Obika , professionally known simply as Lemar, is an English recording artist. Obika has had a run of chart success in the UK, Europe and Australia...
  
   - Best British Music Act 2004
• Maia Morgenstern
  Maia Morgenstern
  Maia Morgenstern is a Romanian film and stage actress, described by Florin Mitu of AMOS News as "a symbol of Romanian theater and film". In the English-speaking world, she is probably best known for the role of Mary, the mother of Jesus, in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ...
  
   - Best Film Actor 2004
• Tom Cruise
  Tom Cruise
  Thomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....
  
   - Best Film Actor 2004

Patrons

The patrons of the Ethnic Multicultural Media Academy (Awards) include Sir Trevor McDonald OBE, Dame Anita Roddick

Anita Roddick

Dame Anita Roddick, DBE was a British businesswoman, human rights activist and environmental campaigner, best known as the founder of The Body Shop, a cosmetics company producing and retailing beauty products that shaped ethical consumerism...

 (Late), Donald Woods

Donald Woods

Donald James Woods, CBE was a white South African journalist and anti-apartheid activist.As editor of the Daily Dispatch from 1965 to 1977, he befriended Steve Biko, leader of the anti-apartheid Black Consciousness Movement, and was banned by the government soon after Biko's death, which had been...

 CBE

CBE

CBE and C.B.E. are abbreviations for "Commander of the Order of the British Empire", a grade in the Order of the British Empire.Other uses include:* Chemical and Biochemical Engineering...

 (Late), Sir GK Noon, Lord Desai, Lord Ouseley, Darcus Howe

Darcus Howe

Darcus Howe is a British broadcaster, writer, and civil liberties campaigner. Originally from Trinidad, he moved to America in the 1960s, then arrived in England intending to study law, where he joined the British Black Panthers, the first such branch of the organization outside the United States...

 and Jonathan Dimbleby

Jonathan Dimbleby

Jonathan Dimbleby is a British presenter of current affairs and political radio and television programmes, a political commentator and a writer. He is the son of Richard Dimbleby and younger brother of British TV presenter David Dimbleby.-Education:Dimbleby was educated at Charterhouse School, a...

. They have all backed EMMA since 1998.